Sally Cowal '66 Updates CNN on Status of the World's Fight Against AIDS

December 6, 2005

December 6, 2005, Greencastle, Ind. - "Sally Cowal, spokeswoman for YouthAIDS, said that although drugs are indeed extending the lives of a small percentage of those infected worldwide, the pandemic is worsening, with infection rates going up in most of the world," notes a story posted on CNN.com. Cowal, former deputy director of the joint United Nations program on HIV and AIDS and 1966 graduate of DePauw University, is among those cited in a World AIDS Day story that examines the status of the deadly disease.

In a live interview with the cable network that aired Thursday, Cowal stated, "prevention is the most important part of what we can be doing. And prevention is information, especially information provided to young people. Half of these new 5 million infections that you mentioned coming about in during [the] last year were in young people ages 15 to 24. So that's why YouthAIDS and PSI work so hard to reach young people with information, and also with life-saving devices like condoms that they can use to protect themselves." Cowal, a member of DePauw's Board of Trustees and a "DePauw Discourse 2004" panelist , also told CNN, "infection rates in most places in the world are in fact going up. In 1995, there were approximately 20 million people living with AIDS. Now there are 40 million people living with AIDS. Clearly, the fact that there is treatment available for a small number of those people that didn't exist 10 years ago gives some hope. But we had 5 million new infections last year. And we can't continue to indefinitely expand the number of people who need treatment. So we need to do a better job with prevention. And prevention is primarily information to the people at greatest risk."